James Sewell creates ballets with ideas. Some of them work
better than others. Nevertheless, when his Minneapolis-based James Sewell
Ballet came to the Joyce Theater, it avoided familiar balletic formulas.

The featured attraction was "Guy Noir: The Ballet,"
a comedy-thriller inspired by Garrison Keillor's radio detective. The
plot was not especially thrilling. But the comedy aroused chuckles, thanks
to Sewell's gift for choreographic caricature and a taped script which
Keillor recited in a deadpan fashion. Portraying the title character,
Benjamin Johnson made his loose-limbed dancing a kinetic counterpart to
Keillor, whose narrative took Guy to a tulle company sponsoring a contest
for the best commercial involving a power tool. Keillor's text abounded
with such wordplay.

The contestants included a sultry and ultimately duplicitous
blonde (Peggy Seipp-Roy), a mad Russian (Justin Leaf), a fanatic modern
dancer (Penelope Freeh) and two manic polka dancers (Nicolas Lincoln and
Brittany Fridenstine). They were all entertainingly goofy and the sight
of dancers dashing about with chainsaws and drills helped make "Guy
Noir" a genuinely novel novelty.

Two plotless ballets were structurally interesting. "Anagram,"
to Schubert's "Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano in A minor,"
abounded with curving movements and soft falls to the floor. Yet, despite
the smoothness of individual episodes, the dance looked slightly disjointed
as a whole, perhaps because of its choreographic form.

A program note explained that "Anagram" is built
from choreographic modules that can be rearranged in different orders
and danced to several different scores. At this performance, choreography
and music usually seemed harmonious, as when brisk leaps paralleled a
musical acceleration. At another point, however, Sally Rousse was tossed
into the air, only to land in the arms of two men. These actions took
place to gentle music and seemed to have a puffball lightness, whereas
they conceivably could have conveyed a sense of exertion to more vigorous
accompaniment.

Only seeing varied arrangements of this choreography to
assorted scores could reveal how effective Sewell's concept truly is.
Yet it was fascinating to find a classical choreographer venturing into
indeterminacy, which is usually associated with modern and postmodern
dancers.

"Involution" was a steady progression. Thomas
Newman's score was tumultuous at the start, as was Sewell's choreography
with its jagged steps and seemingly uncontrollable tics. But as the music
grew sweeter, the choreography calmed and the cast occasionally appeared
to be performing ancient choric circle dances and trancelike swaying rituals.

Just as villains in fiction and drama often prove more interesting
than noble heroes, so, too, Sewell's demonically possessed individuals
were more striking than his angelic celebrants. Yet he made their journey
to serenity convincing.